Earbuds aren’t for everyone and neither are earphones, but at least there are different types for different ears and folks.
Whether you’re happy with a pair of buds that hang loosely out the ear or prefer something to properly fit, you have a style you can wear to get sound on the go. And for folks not happy with either, there are also plenty of over-ear and around-ear headphones offerings, as well.
We even see a few variations of earphones in other styles lately, what with open ear offerings that are all about hearing both your sound and the sound around you. They can go around the head in a bone conduction variety, or on the ear in a loop that lets you do both.
Shokz has been seen with both categories, and last year joined a new form-factor we’re starting to see more of than ever: earring earbuds.
A little bit different, earring-styled earbuds are more or less exactly what you think they’re going to be: earbuds that resemble earrings, but wrap around the fleshy bits of your ear rather than forcing you to use a piercing spot.
That wouldn’t be comfortable because of the weight, and would more like stretch everything, so earring earbuds instead wrap around the ear, providing transmitter and battery in the back section, while the driver goes in the front nestled inside your ear.
It’s a category we first saw in the Bose Ultra Open, with Shokz following closely behind. Bose has largely been absent from any updates, but it seems Shokz isn’t leaving the category alone, using 2026 to launch two variations.
First is a bit of a rehash, but one that aims to bring the price down somewhat: a pair of something like the original, focused on giving you enough of what you might want from a pair of open-earbuds, but in that style.
The OpenDots Air is a slightly smaller and lighter variation on the theme that includes up to 36 hours of battery life, the same style of fit, but a price point closer to the $200 mark, sitting at $219 in Australia and $249 in New Zealand.
The Air appears to be more of a new spot for the range, but there will be a proper replacement for last year’s OpenDots One, which now rather unsurprisingly become the OpenDots Two.
A new generation, they’ll sport the same sort of earring-inspired design, but upgrade the technology, bringing haptic controls to the back where they cling to the flesh of your ear, and also update the sound.
The spherical driver found in the previous has been upgraded, as Shokz’s “Bassphere 2.0” concept evolves to using two drivers aimed at each other to keep the lows and mids strong, essentially delivering less distortion, an approach Bose dabbled in years ago with its MusicMonitor speakers.
In the previous generation — and the one seen in the OpenDots Air — it’s a single 16mm round driver, while the two of the OpenDots Two means it should improve bass and minimise excess vibrations, a win for listeners across more genres.
There’s also a bone conduction microphone working with two air-conduction microphones, plus a bit of AI-focused noise reduction, while Shokz also includes support for Dolby Audio, though it’s more of a software layer, we’re told.
And there’s also something of a bit of bling, as Shokz adds jewellery clip-ons that you can literally clip onto the arm of the buds, making for a bit of a first in the category: actual jewellery earbuds of sorts.
While Motorola and Swarovski have jewel-encrusted earbuds, the Shokz OpenDots Two allow you to change the bling, provided Shokz has made it.
There is a catch: the bling is only being made by Shokz, and won’t be something you can actually buy, arriving with the earbuds as a sort of a bonus extra at launch.
With the earbuds priced at $339 in Australia (and $389 in New Zealand), those accessories seem a bit of a limited addition, but depending on how they’re perceived, could be a bit of a thing in the space. We wouldn’t call them a trend yet, but earring-inspired earbuds have grown over the past year, even seeing Sony enter, so anything is possible.
